When Army Sgt. Diamond Adams dominated an Army combatives championship match last week, video of the fight drew thousands of stunned and admiring comments online.
One highlight clip of the match got more than 5 million views under the simple title: “Sgt. Adams ain’t come to play.”
But there was no surprise in Adams hometown of Kingston, New York.
“Back home, nobody’s even, like, shocked,” Adams told Task & Purpose. “This is how I was known back home.”
Adams, a 91F Small Arms/Artillery Repairer, started karate at 4 in the town about two hours north of New York City. She fought in tournaments throughout childhood, usually against boys, she said. When her karate teachers saw the Army match, she said, “They weren’t even surprised.”
The fight came in the Bantamweight finals of the inaugural XVIII Airborne Corps Combatives Competition at Fort Liberty from Nov. 13 to 15. The competition brought together fighters from the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions, the 3rd Infantry Division, the 10th Mountain Division and the 7th Transportation Brigade at Fort Eustis, Virginia.
In her final bantamweight match, immediately landed a front lead kick against her male opponent.
“It was my move,” said Adams. “I wanted to get him off balance.”
After the kick landed, the soldier retreated a step and Adams then attacked with a flurry of punches.
“I saw an opening. I saw his eyes,” said. “It affected him, and I did it again, and I went in.”
In the video, the two trade blows until Adams lands a heavy, that sends the soldier to the ground. Adams then pounces, maneuvers behind him and ends the fight with a choke hold.
It was Adams’ fourth fight in two days to win the championship belt, one of the previous of which had been against the same soldier in a grappling-only match.
“It was a huge adrenaline rush,” said Adams. “After months of training and then the days of competing, it was just like a huge, huge shock and adrenaline rush. I was really, really excited and proud of myself that I finally finished it.”
Adams was one of four soldiers from the 101st Airborne to win their weight class at the XVIII Airborne event. The 101st team also finished first, the first victory for the 101st since fighters began training as a team under Sgt. First Class James Shindo.
Shindo, who has taught combatives in the Army since 2009, stood up the team this year, recruiting soldiers with experience and proven fighting talent to train specifically for major Army events, a first in the division.
“We always send fighters to compete at all Army events, but we never treat them just like how we would treat our Best Ranger Team, right?” said Shindo. “We pull competitors for Best Ranger (from unit duties) and we train them for X amount of time, but all the fighters? They only get, you know, time to train after hours.”
Soldiers like Adams on the team spend their days as combatives instructors, then train on a plan set by Shindo.
“We have our training regimen. I don’t want to give out my recipe too much,” Shindo said. “Some of our seasonings, you could say, would be Jiu-Jitsu, striking and wrestling. We train cardio, strength conditioning and then good focused recovery.”
Getting soldiers detailed to the combatives program, Shindo said, benefits the full division and the Army. The fighters who train in the program teach all levels of combatives to other units, and then many become combative instructors for their units when they got back.
When fighters return to their home unit, says Shindo, they take back the mental toughness that comes with fighting.
“We definitely build a lot of grit for soldiers, right?” Shindo says. “Soldiers that don’t have the grit, they’re not willing to close with, and they’re not willing to destroy that enemy when it comes time for it, right? So we build grit in our program. Everybody has to work hard. We definitely build that individual up so that they have their confidence and physical fitness to meet with the enemy and then defeat him on that battlefield.”
Adams, who will be back at our home unit in December, came into Shindo’s program by taking the basic combatives course, then began to train in jiu-jitsu.
“It started out as a hobby but then became a passion of mine,” she said. “I’ve been doing it a little over a year.”
For the fight, Adams agreed that the mental part of the game was a key.
“I was just waiting for my turn to come up, I honestly I had no game plan,” Adams said. “I was honestly starting to get very, very nervous because this was my first MMA fight. I’m about to be in a cage and be locked in with a man. I didn’t know what to expect.”
But a talk with a trainer calmed her down. She’d trained specifically over the last months to toughen up her shins to deliver kicks and she focused on a mantra for the leg kicks and punches she wanted to throw.
“Fists of stone, shins of steel,” she said. “Kicking people really hurts when you don’t have shin guards.”
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